We source and distribute our fresh produce products globally. Our products are grown primarily in Central and South America, Africa and the Philippines. We also source products from North America and Europe. Our products are sourced from company-controlled farms and independent growers. We transport our fresh produce to markets using our current fleet of 11 owned and 7 chartered refrigerated vessels, and we operate four port facilities in the United States. We also operate 41 distribution centers, generally with cold storage and banana ripening facilities in our key markets worldwide, including the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, France, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. We currently have 19 fresh-cut facilities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, some of which are located within our distribution centers. Through our vertically integrated network, we manage the transportation and distribution of our products in a continuous temperature-controlled environment. We also have 17 food and beverage retail outlets in the Middle East. This enables us to preserve quality and freshness, and to optimize product shelf life, while ensuring timely and year-round distribution. Furthermore, our position as a volume producer and shipper of bananas allows us to lower our average per-box logistics cost and to provide regular deliveries of our premium fresh fruit to meet the increasing demand for year-round supply.
We market and distribute our products to retail stores, club stores, wholesalers, distributors and foodservice operators in more than 80 countries around the world. North America is our largest market, accounting for 58% of our net sales in 2017. Europe, the Middle East and Asia regions are our other major markets, accounting for 16%, 13% and 11% of our net sales in 2017, respectively. Our distribution centers and fresh-cut facilities address the growing demand from supermarket chains, club stores, foodservice providers, mass merchandisers and independent grocers to provide value-added services, including the preparation of fresh-cut produce, ripening, customized sorting and packing, just-in-time and direct-store-delivery and in-store merchandising and promotional support. Large national chains are increasingly choosing fewer suppliers who can serve all of their needs on a national basis. We believe there is significant opportunity for a company like ours with a full fresh and value added fresh-cut fruit and vegetable product portfolio, a well-recognized brand, a consistent supply of quality produce and a national distribution network to become the preferred supplier to these large retail and convenience store chains, and foodservice customers. We believe we are uniquely positioned as a preferred supplier, and our goal is to expand this status by increasing our leading positions in our fresh-cut produce, avocado, banana and pineapple businesses, and diversifying our product lines into higher margin, more profitable products as a means of expanding our revenue stream and making our performance more predictable.